It is well known to interconnect multiple computers into a local area network (LAN) to enable such computers to exchange information and share resources. A local area network provides a distributed computing environment in which users can access distributed resources and process applications an multiple computers. An "event" marks a change in state of some managed resource in the environment.
A known distributed computing environment, called DCE, has been implemented using software available from the Open Systems Foundation (OSF). Prior OSF DCE computer network implementations provide event services on a local level only. Thus, events generated on a particular machine in the network are only logged or displayed on the machine itself. Other machines in the network have no efficient means for receiving notification when events occur in remote resources in the network. This deficiency makes it difficult for a system manager to remotely manage other resources in the network.
There are event service architectures known in the prior art. One known architecture is the DME Event Service (EVS), which is described in "DME Event Services Architecture, Version 2.0" by Ferrante, dated Apr. 28, 1993. This service uses the concept of event suppliers (who produce event data) and event consumers (who process event data generated by the suppliers), but the service has a cumbersome subscription mechanism, is complex and cannot be integrated into other existing DCE services. Another known architecture is the OMG Event Service model, which is described in the "Joint Object Services Submission--Event Service Specification," OMG TC 93.7.3, dated Jul. 2, 1993. This architecture provides an object-based event service that defines two basic models for communicating event data: the push model, which allows event suppliers to initiate the transfer of events to consumers, and the pull model, which allows event consumers to request events from event suppliers. Theoretically, an event channel object allows multiple suppliers to communicate with multiple consumers in an asynchronous way. The main drawback to the OMG Event Service model is that there are no currently-available implementations.
There remains a need to provide event management services for both traditional and object-oriented system architectures wherein managed resources can send asynchronous notifications or "events" to interested parties.